Hutus

The Hutus are an ethnic group in Rwanda, Burundi, and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. 11,500,000 Hutus live in those regions, with Christianity being the only major religion of the Hutu people. Under Belgium, the Hutus were oppressed by the Belgian colonial authorities, who were supported by the Tutsis; in revenge, the Interahamwe embarked on a campaign of genocide against the Tutsis in 1994, killing as many as 1,070,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus (meaning 7 per minute for 100 days). Eventually, the Hutu extremists would be forced out of the country and into the Congo, and many Hutus fled with them. Today, the Hutus and Tutsis have lived in relative harmony, with sectarian tensions not being as high as they were in the 1990s.